U.S. patent number 6,598,091 [Application Number 09/347,235] was granted by the patent office on 2003-07-22 for method and medium for rendering documents by server.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.. Invention is credited to Won Bong Cho, Min Seop Lee, Jin Hee Yoo.
United States Patent |
6,598,091 |
Yoo , et al. |
July 22, 2003 |
Method and medium for rendering documents by server
Abstract
A method and a medium for rendering documents to a browser from
a server are provided. According to the rendering method, the
browser requests a predetermined document and at the same time
transmits user's computing environmental information to the server.
The server evaluates the computing environmental information
received from the browser. The server converts the requested
document based on the evaluated user's computing environmental
information. The server transmits the converted document to the
browser. The server renders the documents to the browser in an
appropriate manner by including only the information accessible in
compliance to the user's computing environmental information, or
converting it into the document accessible by the user. Thus, the
data volume to be processed by the browser as well as the network
traffic are reduced, and thus the document transfer rate is
enhanced. In addition, the user having a limited computing
environment can sufficiently utilize the documents.
Inventors: |
Yoo; Jin Hee (Seoul,
KR), Cho; Won Bong (Kyungki-do, KR), Lee;
Min Seop (Seoul, KR) |
Assignee: |
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
(Kyungki-do, KR)
|
Family
ID: |
26634201 |
Appl.
No.: |
09/347,235 |
Filed: |
July 2, 1999 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
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|
|
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Oct 12, 1998 [KR] |
|
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1998-42551 |
Jun 10, 1999 [KR] |
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1999-21607 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
709/246;
707/E17.121; 715/249; 715/234 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F
16/9577 (20190101); G06T 2200/16 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G06F
17/30 (20060101); G06F 009/44 () |
Field of
Search: |
;709/217,219,203,226,223,246,206 ;707/10,101 ;715/513,523 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Dinh; Dung C.
Assistant Examiner: Flynn; Kimberly
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Sughrue Mion, PLLC
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A method for rendering a document to a browser by a server on a
computer network, the method comprising the steps of: at said
browser, simultaneously requesting a predetermined document from
said server and transmitting computing environmental information of
a user to said server; at said server, evaluating the computing
environmental information received from said browser; at said
server, converting said requested document according to the
evaluated computing environmental information; at said server,
transmitting said converted document to said browser and further
comprising agreeing how to receive and transmit the computing
environmental information between said browser and said server; at
said server, requesting said computing environmental information
from a browser, if a document request is sent from the browser
which has not agreed with said server as to how to receive and
transmit the computing environmental information; and at said
browser, transmitting the computing environmental information to
said server based on the requesting.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said computing environmental
information is included in a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)
header.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said requesting step comprises
the steps of: transmitting a FORM embedded page to said browser for
requesting a user to fill in the FORM embedded page; displaying the
FORM embedded page on a display; and transmitting said computing
environmental information to said server.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising positioning said
browser in a portable communication device.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating said
computing environmental information by determining whether a
computing environment of said user includes at least one of an
audio interface, a video interface, an alphanumeric interface and a
mouse interface.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein said converted document is
converted to a format for said audio interface if said computing
environment does not include at least one of said video interface,
said alphanumeric interface and said mouse interface, and said
converted document is converted to a format for said video
interface if said computing environment does not include said audio
interface.
7. A computer readable medium for rendering a document to a browser
by a server on a computer network, the computer readable medium
comprising: program code means for simultaneously requesting a
predetermined document from said server and transmitting computing
environmental information of a user to said server, at said
browser; program code means for evaluating the computing
environmental information received from said browser, at said
server; program code means for converting said requested document
according to the evaluated computing environmental information, at
said server; and program code means for transmitting said converted
document to said browser, at said server, wherein said computing
environmental information is generated by determining whether a
computing environment of said user includes at least one of an
audio interface, a video interface, an alphanumeric interface and a
mouse interface.
8. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein said computing
environmental information is included in a hypertext transfer
protocol (HTTP) header.
9. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein said browser is
located in a portable communication device.
10. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein said converted
document is converted to a format for said audio interface if said
computing environment does not include at least one of said video
interface, said alphanumeric interface and said mouse interface,
and said converted document is converted to a format for said video
interface if said computing environment does not include said audio
interface.
11. A method for rendering a document to a browser by a server on a
computer network, the method comprising the steps of: at said
browser, simultaneously requesting a predetermined document from
said server and transmitting computing environmental information of
a user to said server; at said server, evaluating the computing
environmental information received from said browser; at said
server, converting said requested document according to the
evaluated computing environmental information; at said server,
transmitting said converted document to said browser; and
generating said computing environmental information by determining
whether a computing environment of said user includes at least one
of an audio interface, a video interface, an alphanumeric interface
and a mouse interface.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein said computing environmental
information is included in a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)
header.
13. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of agreeing
how to receive and transmit the computing environmental information
between said browser and said server.
14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of: at
said server, requesting said computing environmental information
from a browser, if a document request is sent from the browser
which has not agreed with said server as to how to receive and
transmit the computing environmental information; and at said
browser, transmitting the computing environmental information to
said server based on the requesting.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein said requesting step comprises
the steps of: transmitting a FORM embedded page to said browser for
requesting a user to fill in the FORM embedded page; displaying the
FORM embedded page on a display; and transmitting said computing
environmental information to said server.
16. The method of claim 11, further comprising positioning said
browser in a portable communication device.
17. The method of claim 11, wherein said converted document is
converted to a format for said audio interface if said computing
environment does not include at least one of said video interface,
said alphanumeric interface and said mouse interface, and said
converted document is converted to a format for said video
interface if said computing environment does not include said audio
interface.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and a medium for
rendering a document written into hypertext markup language (HTML),
and more particularly, to a method and a medium for rendering an
HTML document to a web browser in which a web server properly
converts the HTML document according to a user's computing
environment and renders the converted result to the web
browser.
2. Prior Art
Generally, the Internet is a kind of computer network, that is, a
world-wide network of computers or servers for sharing information
about education, economy, trade, etc. Computers connected to the
Internet use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol) as a standard protocol to communicate with one another,
or any other networks. The TCP/IP divides the information obtained
via the Internet into smaller pieces called packets. These packets
are each numbered and are labelled with destination addresses, so
as to be forwarded to the destination. That is, the packets are
stamped with information concerning where the packets are from,
where they go, and how many packets there are in total, and then
are sent to the designation. After the packets arrive at the
destination, they are reassembled.
These days WWW (World Wide Web: hereinbelow referred to as "The
Web") is the most popular information service provider on the
Internet, and allows graphic information and sound information as
well as text information to be presented and exchanged.
One of the significant features of the Web is providing information
in the form of "hypertext" or "hypermedia". The term "hypertext"
means text information that includes links connected to other
online information therein and the term "hypermedia" extends the
concept of hypertext to other forms of information, including
images, sounds and even motion images. Therefore, a user reading a
hypermedia document clicks one of the links embedded in the
document on the screen so as to receive a new document in a desired
web site specified by URL (Universal Resource Locator).
The Web also adopts a client-server system as other internet
services do, but differs from the conventional client-server
applications, where a connection between the client and the server
is maintained as long as the client is active. A web client
(hereinafter referred to as a "web browser") and a web server are
kinds of application programs, and exchange data through a standard
protocol. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), one of the standard
protocols, is used to communicate web documents of hypertext- and
hypermedia-structures between web clients and web servers. Web
documents are created using HTML and are generally ASCII texts with
tags. Tags are commands inserted in the texts to present texts on a
monitor screen or jump to other web documents.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a transmission path between
a web browser and a web server. A web browser 110 initiates a
request for a HTML document resident in a web site specified by
URL. to a web server 120. The web server 120 then obtains, and
supplies the web browser 110 with, the desired HTML data. The web
browser 110 displays the supplied document on user's display
devices in an appropriate format.
Here, the HTML documents in a site specified by URL, provided to
the web browser 110 by the web server 120 are transmitted without
any modification, taking no consideration of users' various
computing environments, that is, irrespectively of whether or not
the user's computer is equipped with a mouse, a speaker or a
keyboard.
However, when a user is under a limited computing environment; for
example, when a user has a computer system having no speaker, the
user cannot listen to the phonetical information included in the
HTML documents.
Therefore, the information contained in the HTML document supplied
by a web server 120 would be useless to a user if the user cannot
gain access thereto due to a limited computing environment, which
causes a mere waste in data transmission time and an increase in
the amount of web traffic because of the transmission of the data
unavailable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is thus an object of the invention to provide a method and a
medium for rendering a document to a browser of a user, according
to user's computing environments.
The object of the present invention can be accomplished by
providing a method for rendering a document to a browser by a
server, the document rendering method comprising the steps of: the
browser requesting a predetermined document to the server and at
the same time transmitting user's computing environmental
information to the server; the server evaluating the user's
computing environmental information received from the browser; the
server converting the requested document according to the evaluated
user's computing environmental information; and the server
transmitting the converted document to the browser.
It is preferable that the computing environmental information is
included in a HTTP header.
It is preferable that the method further includes the step of
making an appointment for communicating the user's computing
environmental information between the server and the browser.
It is more preferable that the method further includes the steps
of: the server requesting user's computing environmental
information to a new browser, in the case that the new browser
makes no appointment with the server for communicating user
computing environmental information with each other; and the
browser transmitting the user's computing environmental information
to the server based on the request.
The method is effective when it further includes the steps of: the
browser displaying a fill-in form for requesting a user to fill the
user's computing environmental information therein when the server
requests the user's computing environmental information; and the
server transmitting the computing environmental information filled
in by the user to the server.
The object of the present invention can also be accomplished by
providing a computer readable medium for rendering a document to a
browser by a server on a computer network, the computer readable
medium comprising: program code means for requesting a
predetermined document and at the same time transmitting user's
computing environmental information to said server, at said
browser; program code means for evaluating the computing
environmental information received from said browser, at said
server; program code means for converting said requested document
according to the evaluated user's computing environmental
information, at said server; and program code means for
transmitting said converted document to said browser, at said
server.
It is preferable that the computing environmental information is
included in a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above object of the present invention will become more apparent
by describing in detail the preferred embodiment of the present
invention with reference to the attached drawings in which:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a transmission path between
a web browser and a web server;
FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the method for rendering web
documents according to the present invention; and
FIG. 3 is a flow chart view showing the method for rendering the
HTML documents by the web server, according to the user's computing
environments.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The preferred embodiment will be described in detail with reference
to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 2 is a schematic view illustrating a method for rendering web
documents according to the present invention. The system for
rendering the web documents includes web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c
and 110d, a web server 120, and a HTML converter 220.
The term "HTTP" is a web standard protocol for exchanging HTML
documents between the web server 120 and the web browsers 110a,
110b, 110c and 110d. Information transmitted by the HTTP is
comprised of a HTTP header and a documents body. The HTTP header is
transferred by MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) which
is an internet standard protocol for multi-media electronic mails
on the internet. The HTTP has two advantages by using the MIME
protocol: first, it can transmit ASCII data and second, it can
serve to identify the type of data during transmission. Thus, the
HTTP header can convey the method for opening HTML documents and
the information for identifying formats of HTML documents, as well
as the binary information, and also convey even the (encoded)
nonstandard information agreed between the web server 120 and the
web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d. Generally, the HTTP header
contains information about the version of HTTP utilized, the status
of response, the current date and time, and the information linked
to the requested document such as its length and the last time it
was modified, and a documents body indicates the requested HTML
documents.
A plurality of web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d respectively
gain access to a web server and send a GET request with a URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) of desired HTML documents to the web
server according to the protocols specified in the URL. The URL
provides a standard information location indicating method for
identifying the location of millions of web documents on the
Internet in a uniform manner, and is used to indicate the location
of web documents contained in the web servers.
When sending a GET request, on the basis of a predetermined
encoding/decoding method, a web browser writes a user's computing
environmental information on a HTTP header, e. g., whether the
user's computer has a color or a mono display, the mode of the
display is in texts or in graphics, the computer system is equipped
with a keyboard, a speaker/microphone, a Windows environment, a
monitor, etc., and then transmits such information to the web
server 120.
The web server 120 requested by a web browser to render HTML
documents evaluates the user's computing environmental information
from the HTTP header, and then, deletes tags or contents
unnecessary for the user from the fetched HTML documents specified
by URL, using a HTML converter 220, on the basis of the evaluated
user's computing environment information, or converts the fetched
HTML documents into documents in the form of which the user can
access thereto.
For example, in a computing environment having no mouse, the web
server 120 inserts tab indices in the links or the image maps on
HTML documents such that a user can access thereto via a keyboard.
When a "FORM" for inputting keywords to search for information is
contained in the requested HTML document, the web server 120 can
insert an access key for the user to fill in the FORM by using the
keyboard and moving the curse, within the FORM. In a computing
environment without having both a mouse and a keyboard but with a
speaker, the web server 120 converts the content of the HTML
documents into the phonetical information, in which case the server
120 inserts a word or a number in front of, or at the back of, an
anchor or an image map or makes the sound of an anchor louder so
that the user can recognize the anchor or the image map simply by
listening the sound. In a computing environment having no monitor,
an original text file is converted into an audio file such that a
file content can be recognized. In a computing environment without
having a GUI (Graphic User Interface), the web server 120 renders a
title or a URL in the place of an image to indicate that an image
exists.
The web server 120 transmits the HTML web documents converted in
accordance with the user's computing environment to the web
browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d in order to display them on a
screen according to the type of the HTML documents.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the method of rendering the HTML
document by the web server, according to the user's computing
environment.
The web server 120 and said web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110b
agree how to encode and decode the user's computing environmental
information (step 310). For example, information as to whether the
computer is equipped with a speaker, what is the color of the
monitor, etc., is converted into ASCII data which correspond to
each other in an one-to-one basis, in order to be recognized by
each other. When the web server 120 is requested by the web
browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d to render a document, it first
judges whether the request was made from the web browser containing
the agreed user's computing environment information (step 320). If
it is confirmed, the web server 120 reads out the user's computing
environmental information contained in the HTTP header from the
HTTP protocol transmitted from the web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c
and 110d (step 360).
If the browser does not contain the user's computing environmental
information in the HTTP header, the web server 120 first requests
the web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d to render the user's
computing environmental information.
When the web server 120 requests the user's computing environmental
information and at the same time sends the page including a FORM to
the web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d. Then, the web browsers
receive and display it on the display device, so that the user can
input his computing environmental information therein. For this
purpose, the user's computer system must be equipped with a display
device and a means for inputting his or her computing environmental
information such as a keyboard or a mouse. A user fills in the page
transmitted from the web server 120 and then sends the filled-in
page back to the web server 120. The page with a FORM requesting
user's computing environmental information may have several items
concerning the user's computing environmental information which are
prearranged by the web server 120 so that the user can mark on the
appropriate items by clicking on them. Otherwise, the user may
directly input his or her computing environmental information on
the FORM. By leaving the FORM blank, the user may not transmit his
or her computing environmental information to the web server, in
which case the web server 120 renders the HTML documents without
any modification as they are.
Where the user's computing environmental information is sent to the
web server 120, loaded in the HTTP header or through the page with
a FORM requesting the user to input the information, the web server
120 reads out the users computing environmental information (step
360) and evaluates it (step 370), and converts the HTML documents
specified in the URL to comply with the evaluated user's computing
environmental information through HTML converter (step 380). The
HTML documents converted by the web server 120 is transmitted to
the web browsers 110a, 110b, 110c and 110d through the HTTP
protocol (step 390).
As described above according to the present invention, the web
server renders the HTML documents to the web browser in an
appropriate manner by including only the information accessible in
compliance to the user's computing environment, or converting it
into the document accessible by the user. Thus, the network traffic
as well as the data volume to be processed by the web browser are
reduced, and thus the document transfer rate is enhanced. In
addition, the user having a limited computing environment can
sufficiently utilize the web documents.
It is expected that portable communications devices will be
provided in various developed patterns as use of lap-top or
palm-top computers is prevailing and user's computing environments
will also be varied accordingly. Thus, the method and the medium
for rendering HTML documents converted by a web server according to
the present invention will be more effective in various computing
environments as described above.
Although the present invention has been described in connection
with preferred embodiment thereof, it will be appreciated by those
skilled in the art that additions, modifications, substitutions and
deletions not specifically described may be made without departing
from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the
appended claims.
* * * * *